3 Ideas for Displaying Collections

Hello ABM readers! I'm Rubyellen from Cakies, and I'm back to talk about some of our collections and how to display them. I'm sure most of us have a collection of sorts going. A popular one that I have seen on the internet is globe collections. I've got a ton of them myself. When I see one while thrifting, my friends won't let me walk out of the store with it, because I have way too many (I really do!). I had my husband put up a wooden shelf to display some of my globes, and I have a few more (okay, maybe a lot more) scattered around the house. They all look so good grouped together!Something else I collect is old keys and I have them grouped on a wall together. It's a simple collection, but together they make a nice piece of wall art.We are also rock collectors over here, especially with my 4 little ones. Everywhere we go, they are always finding rocks to bring home! We had all of our rocks on a shelf, but I wanted to use the shelf for something else, so I came up with another solution to display some of our rocks. I wanted to make a poster of our rock collection and this is what I did…1. Choose a background for your collection. Since I wanted to keep it simple, I chose white and purchased a white foam matte board.2. Lay out your collection to be photographed. I laid out all the rocks in an arrangement I liked and took a picture.

3. Find a frame. I got a frame from IKEA and in Photoshop, adjusted the photo to the size of the frame. If you aren't Photoshop savvy, you can take your image file to the print shop and they can probably do it for you, but they might charge for that extra labor.

4. Take your image file to the print shop. I took my image on a flash drive to the print shop and had them print it out for me with a matte finish.I love how our poster came out. It's a great way to get wall art and still display our rock collection!You could easily do this with any of your collections! If an object is larger (for example, a globe), you might want to purchase 2 white foam boards so that the base and background is the same (or whatever color/pattern it is you are going for). You would have to take a picture of each item individually, then in Photoshop, put all the individual images you took and put it together into one poster. It will definitely take a little bit more Photoshop know-how to put larger objects together in a poster.So if you’re finding you’ve collected too many things over the years, but don’t have the heart to give it away or don’t like the space your collection is taking up, putting them all on a poster is a good way to still display it (and document it for memories sake). Maybe this will make giving your collection another home (or storing it away) a lot easier!

I really like the poster idea. This is at least partly because my family moves a lot. This would be a much more concise way to keep and display things that we love, but which are too heavy to meet weight requirements, or too bulky to meet space ones. Now, I just need to find enough wall space.

These are the MOST beautiful ideas – I’m a geography teacher and i have SO MANY globes and rocks filling up my storage cupboards. The globes shelf with lights will be perfect to make my classroom more exciting and i’m going to get the rocks snapped, printed and then laminated so the students can label them (as sedimentary/metamorphic etc etc) with wipe off markers – Thank you!

I love the idea of photographing a collection and displaying that instead. My husband has an enormous collection of rocks he has been working on since childhood and this is a great way to display them.

Do you keep a record of where the rocks came from. For instance, we have a slew of shells from various coastal locations and we’ve marked the ‘can’ they are in right now with the location and date – as a memory jarger. But – I do love the poster idea. If you had the date/memory you could put it on the back of the poster.

Another nifty thing, you could get a shadowbox from HobbyLobby or Michaels, have the white foam board cut to size and use E6000 to glue the rocks onto the foamboard and put it into the frame. OR! and I have done this with some coins I’ve collected over the years, glue them onto a solid mat board/foamboard and place them without glass into a regular photo frame and hang it on the wall for a more minimal effect. I usually measure about an 1″ to 2″ white space between the edge of the frame to where I’d like my collage to start!

Love the ideas..now what to do with my Monster High Dolls people keep giving me!

These are so cute! I actually have a HUGE collection of elephant figurines. I just moved into an apartment though and since space is tight, I haven’t yet brought them over from my mom’s house. I love the idea of taking a picture of them to display. That might be a good idea for now until we move into a place with more space for them. Thanks for the inspiration!

I had an idea like this but wasn’t sure i’d like it, and kinda forgot all about it. Your’s turned out so great i definitely want to do this too! My girls will be so excited to see their “artifacts” from gem mining turned into art!

Great ideas! I really love the board with the stones, it’s so creative! I mean, I’ve never seen such a thing before. There are many people that put their collections on a closet or shelve, but this is so special! 🙂

I love the simplicity of a rock collection. And the fact that it shows love for children and innocence and the beauty of the world. the world is beautiful. love it. <3http://www.lds.org
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i love the simplicity of the rock collection. it shows love of children, beauty, innocence, and the world!!:) it represents a lot to me because i was definitely a rock collector when i was a little kid<3
honestly, the world is beautiful.
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be. happy.

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A thousand times Thank You for the rock poster idea! I have a six year old who loves to paint & draw adorable things on rocks & I can’t bear to part with them but haven’t known how to display them. Loads of love, Heidi

I feel silly for not thinking of this idea before! Now I’m truly inspired to wrangle my bouncy ball collection (yes I said bouncy ball) together! Now I might just have to do a new office photo shoot afterwards!

That rock print is so cool! I actually thought, upon first seeing the picture, that you were going to instruct us to glue the rocks to the foam board, which I also think is a great idea! That way you don’t actually have to store the collection elsewhere, If it’s something that your kids will want to touch though, that probably wouldn’t work. Love these ideas!

I just inhereted a giant coin collection from my grandmother (includnig nazi german coins, soivet russian coins and coins from the 1700s), and I’ve been looking for a way to display them. They’re so cool and I hate the idea of them just sitting around in a tin. This is absolutely perfect!

Jelena — put that collection into a display case, depending on how many you have, you can find a tabletop type to put on a side table or bookcase. You’ll be able to see the pretty things, feel connected to your grandma, and not spend time dusting. I’m very conscious of dust (and not wanting to do it if at all possible) so I put things under glass domes or in display cases, especially delicate or fragile items.

That poster idea is PERFECTION. We move constantly (military life) and it is hard to contain the collector in me…but then we box it all up every 2 years and things get smashed/damaged/I’m heartbroken. This is a beautiful way to preserve those collectibles! Thank you!